Jilamara Arts and Crafts Association Artists
Milikapiti, Wulirankuwu, Melville Island, Northern Territory
2023
Displayed 2023 at Museum of Contemporary Art Australia
Jilamara Arts and Crafts Association Artists
Martina Baxter
Born 1976, Darwin.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Wurankuwu/Ranku; Yimunga (Tribe): Takaringa (Scaly Mullet); Yoyi (Dance): Jarranga (Buffalo)
Neil Black
Born 1982, Darwin.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Mirrikawuyanga; Yimunga (Tribe): Takaringini (Scaly Mullet); Yoyi (Dance): Pikipiki (Pig)
Pamela Brooks
Born 1958, Milikapiti, Melville Island, Northern Territory.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Mirrikawuyanga; Yimunga (Tribe): Marntupuni (House Fly); Yoyi: Pikipiki (Pig)
Walter Brooks
Born 1994, Darwin.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Purrampunarli/Karslake; Yimunga (Tribe): Wantaringuwi (Sun); Yoyi (Dance): Kapala (Boat)
Brenda Bush
Born 1952, Milikapiti, Melville Island, Northern Territory.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni Country- Pickataramoo (Mantiyupwi); Yimunga (Tribe): Miyartuwi (Pandanus); Yoyi (Dance): Marntipani (Seagull)
Doriana Bush
Born 1952, Milikapiti, Melville Island, Northern Territory.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country) Paluwiyanga/Andranangoo (Goose Creek); Yimunga (Tribe): Takaringa (Scaly Mullet); Yoyi (Dance): Narringari (Magpie Goose)
Michelle Bush
Born 1978, Milikapiti, Melville Island, Northern Territory.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Paluwiyanga/Andranangoo (Goose Creek); Yimunga (Tribe): Milipurrula (White Cockatoo); Yoyi (Dance): Narringari (Magpie Goose)
Timothy Cook
Born 1958, Milikapiti, Melville Island, Northern Territory.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Mananowmi/Paluwiyanga (Goose Creek); Yimunga (Tribe): Marntupuni (House Fly); Yoyi (Dance): Tartuwarli (Shark)
Colin Heenan-Puruntatameri
Born 1995, Darwin.
Tiwi people
Naringa Murrakupupuni (Country): Yarpalika/Pukulupi (Maxwell Creek); Yimunga (Tribe) Jangala (March Fly); Yoyi (Dance): Kapala (Boat)
Nancy Kerinauia
Born 1991, Darwin.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Pickataramoor/Mantiyupwi; Yimunga (Tribe): Takaringa (Scaly Mullet); Yoyi (Dance): Tayama (Dingo)
Raelene Kerinauia Lampuwatu
Born 1962, Wurrumiyanga, Bathurst Island, Northern Territory.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Pickataramoor/Mantiyupwi; Yimunga (Tribe): Wantaringuwi (Sun); Yoyi (Dance): Yirrikapayi (Crocodile)
Raylene Miller White
Born 1988, Darwin.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Purrampunarli/Karslake; Yimunga (Tribe): Wantaringuwi (Sun); Yoyi Dance): Yirrikapayi (Crocodile)
Edwina Moreen
Born 1991, Darwin.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Malawu; Yimunga (Tribe): Wantaringuwi (Sun); Yoyi (Dance): Jarranga (Buffalo)
Mary Elizabeth Moreen
Born 1946, Milikapiti, Melville Island, Northern Territory.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Purrampunarli/Karslake; Yimunga (Tribe): Wantaringuwi (Sun); Yoyi (Dance): Yirrikapayi (Crocodile)
Bernadette Mungatopi
Born 1971, Milikapiti, Melville Island, Northern Territory.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Purrampunarli/Karslake; Yimunga (Tribe): Miyartuwi (Pandanus); Yoyi (Dance): Yirrikapayi (Crocodile)
Gerry Mungatopi
Born 1981, Darwin.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Purrampunarli; Yimunga (Tribe): Wantaringuwi (Sun); Yoyi (Dance): Yirrikapayi (Crocodile)
Jimmy Mungatopi
Born 1985, Darwin.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Purrampunarli/Karslake; Yimunga (Tribe): Miyartuwi (Pandanus); Yoyi (Dance): Yirrikapayi (Crocodile)
Janice Murray Pungautiji
Born 1966, Milikapiti, Melville Island, Northern Territory.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Yimpinari; Yimunga (Tribe) Tarnikina (Flying Fox); Yoyi (Dance): Tarrikarlani (Turtle)
Tina Patlas
Born 1968, Milikapiti, Melville Island, Northern Territory.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Mantiyupwi; Yimunga (Tribe): Pingaluwula (Stone); Yoyi (Dance): Marntipani (Seagull)
Geraldine Pilakui
Born 1978, Cape Fourcroy, Bathurst Island, Northern Territory.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Wurankuwu/Ranku; Yimunga (Tribe): Arinkuwula (Stone); Yoyi (Dance): Yirrikapayi (Crocodile)
Aileen Puruntatameri
Born 1949, Mantiyupwi, Bathurst Island, Northern Territory.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Purrampunarli/Karslake; Yimunga (Tribe): Wantaringuwi (Sun); Yoyi (Dance): Yirrikapayi (Crocodile)
Barbara Puruntatameri
Born 1970, Pirlangimpi, Melville Island, Northern Territory.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Yarpalika/Pukulupi (Maxwell Creek); Yimunga (Tribe): Wantaringuwi (Sun); Yoyi (Dance): Kirrilima (Jungle Fowl)
Colleen Freddy Puruntatameri
Born 1969, Darwin.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Yarpalika/Kurlupini (Maxwell Creek); Yimunga (Tribe): Miyartuwi (Pandanus); Yoyi (Dance): Jurrukukuni (Owl)
Marie Claire Puruntatameri
Born 1992, Darwin.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Purrampunarli/Karslake; Yimunga (Tribe): Wantaringuwi (Sun); Yoyi (Dance): Yirrikapayi (Crocodile)
Patrick Freddy Puruntatameri
Born 1973, Darwin.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Yarpalika/Pukulupi (Maxwell Creek); Yimunga (Tribe): Miyartuwi (Pandanus); Yoyi (Dance): Jurrukukuni (Owl)
Rachel Puruntatameri
Born 1944, Milikapiti, Melville Island, Northern Territory.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Jurrupi (Jessie River); Yimunga (Tribe): Miyartuwi (Pandanus); Yoyi (Dance): Narringari (Magpie Goose)
Irene Tipiloura
Born 1974, Darwin.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Taracumbi; Yimunga (Tribe): Takaringa (Scaly Mullet); Yoyi (Dance): Pika (Horse)
Pius Tipungwuti
Born 1954, Wurrumiyunga, Bathurst Island, Northern Territory.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Wurankuwu; Yimunga (Tribe): Arinkuwula (Stone); Yoyi (Dance): Jarranga (Buffalo)
Pedro Wonaeamirri
Born 1974, Pirlangimpi, Melville Island, Northern Territory.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Paluwiyanga/Andranangoo (Goose Creek); Yimunga (Tribe): Milipurrula (White Cockatoo); Yoyi (Dance): Jilarti (Brolga)
Michelle Woody Minnapinni
Born 1972, Pirlangimpi, Melville Island, Northern Territory.
Tiwi people
Murrakupupuni (Country): Pupatuwu; Yimunga (Tribe): Miyartuwi (Pandanus); Yoyi (Dance): Kapala (Boat)
Jilamara Arts and Crafts Association is owned and governed by Tiwi artists from the community of Milikapiti on Melville Island. Established in 1989, Jilamara fosters and promotes Tiwi art making, cultural projects and collaborative processes. Its artists are nationally and internationally renowned for their contemporary works based on ceremonial body painting designs, clan totems and Tiwi creation stories. Their multidisciplinary practices include painting with locally sourced earth pigments on stringybark, linen and canvas, ironwood carving, weaving, printmaking, screen printed textiles, photography and film. The work of Jilamara Arts and Crafts Association artists are held in major public collections including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, the British Museum, Fondation Opale, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, the Art Gallery of South Australia, and the Commonwealth Institute. Recent exhibitions include YOYI (dance) at Gropius Bau, Berlin (2022); TIWI, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2021); 22nd Biennale of Sydney: NIRIN, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney (2020); Tarnanthi, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, (2019); and 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial: Defying Empire, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2017).
Image courtesy the artists
Artist text
by Lucy Latella
YOYI (dance) (2020) is a collaborative artist-led video work by Jilamara Arts and Crafts Association in Milikapiti, Melville Island, in the Tiwi Islands. Alternating across four walls of the gallery, this immersive video installation depicts 30 artists, each performing a ceremonial yoyi (dance) on Country near Paluwiyanga (Goose Creek), Purumpanali (Karslake), and Yapilika (Maxwell Creek).
The video is a celebration of Tiwi culture, a significant act of recording ceremonial dance for future generations both within the community and beyond the Tiwi Islands. It is the Jilamara artists’ first collective exploration into digital media, extending upon their renowned artistic practices that evolved from ceremonial jilamara (body paint designs), to weaving, ironbark sculpture, ceramics, printing, natural ochre on stringybark, and, more recently, on canvas and linen. Video offers a medium through which the performative roots of iconic Tiwi jilamara and ceremonial objects can be widely shared, captured in the Country from which they originated. As Jilamara artist and executive member Colin Heenan-Puruntatameri explains, ‘From body it moved onto bark and then canvas, silk, printing, and now we are moving into digital. Culture is evolving with time.’ (1)
Performance and the body are central aspects of Tiwi ceremony. In YOYI (dance), the artist takes centre stage in each scene, donning ceremonial objects and jilamara of natural ochre collected from Country where they dance. Passed down patrilineally, these markings and gestures resemble their individual totems, including the Tartuwali (Shark), Yirrikapayi (Crocodile), Kapala (Sailing Boat), Jarrangini (Buffalo), Jilarti (Brolga), and Jarrikarlani (Turtle).
There is a palpable energy throughout the work, fuelled by community and togetherness. Though most dancers appear solo, they are held in the space by a rhythmic undercurrent of clapping and song behind the camera, releasing stories of totems, events, and daily life back into the Country that informed them. The voices spur on the performer and celebrate them as they dance, enforcing the importance of both the individual and the collective in actively practising culture. The viewer watches the performance through the lens, intimately immersed in the call and response.
Heenan-Puruntatameri continues, ‘We live on a remote community. It is time for us to be seen and heard. We want people to recognise how strong, how beautiful and complex our culture is, our families, our Countries, our history, our future. We adapt, we evolve, we change, we create as we write into the future.’ (2)
The Jilamara artists have recognised digital technology as a tool to enhance multi-generational exchange and safeguard the continuation of culture for future generations. They have embraced it as a familiar language for young Tiwi Islanders: an access point for mentorship and employment opportunities, a method for passing down knowledge, creating new stories, and connecting across generations as one Tiwi mob. As a community-led and community-held archive, the process and outcome of the video has generated a renewed sense of wurrungura (moving forward), cultural pride, and agency. YOYI (dance) is a celebration of Tiwi culture and a means to actively share and preserve it.
(1) Conversation between Colin Heenan-Puruntatameri and Will Heathcote, Jilamara Arts and Crafts Association, 2019.
(2) ibid.
Jilamara Arts and Crafts Association
7min
Artists' acknowledgements
This project was assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body, and the Indigenous Visual Arts Industry Support program.
Project and creative development: Michelle Woody Minnapinni, Colin Heenan-Puruntatameri, Pedro Wonaeamirri, Will Heathcote, and Hannah Raisin.
Videography and edit: Alex Badham.
The participating artists and project team wish to acknowledge the Traditional Owners and family groups of Wulirankuwu Country, the custodians of the land on which Jilamara Arts and Crafts Association operates and surrounding regions where this project was filmed and created. This collaborative artwork embodies the collective knowledge of the Tiwi people. It was created by and with the consent of the custodians of this knowledge. The intellectual and cultural property of this work belongs to
the Tiwi People and their Ancestors, through the long-standing living practice of Yoyi (Dance) on Murrakupupuni (Country).